Overlord Minions, Dark Legend Finally Detailed

Aug. 20 11:46 PM by Alicia Ashby

Overlord for the PC and Xbox 360 was a pretty rad game, so I'm pretty psyched that the wave of games that includes Overlord II will have SKUs specific to the Wii and DS. Not as much as been said about them as... well, Overlord II, so I was quite pleased to stumble across some exclusive GameSpot coverage of the two titles. You should also check out the video interview above, which goes into detail about story and features for the Wii SKU. Anyway, links and coverage snippets behind the cut.

Overlord: DarkLegends is the Wii title, and it's actually a direct prequel to the original Overlord title. It works basically to set up the situation that exists in the first game, and seems to put you in the shoes of your direct predecessor. The full write-up is here, but here's a bit that I found particularly interesting.

Controls aside, Dark Legend will play a lot like the original game for the most part; you'll complete a variety of different quests in the fantasy world filled with twisted fairytale characters, and, inevitably, your minions will cause chaos along the way. One amusing new gameplay mechanic that we got to see in action is the option to pluck one of your minions from the horde, violently throttle it by the neck until its eyes glow (by shaking the Wii Remote), and then release it. At this point, the minion in question will become a missile of sorts: You can choose to have it automatically hone in on an enemy and detonate on impact or guide and detonate it manually. The effect of the missile will be determined by the color of the minion that was used so, for example, a brown minion will explode like a conventional bomb, while a blue will create a dome of healing.

Overlord: Minions is the DS title, and it's more of an action-puzzle game that honestly puts me in mind of Lost Vikings, at least to read about it. You control one of each of the classic minion types, with his classic powers, and use their abilities to solve problems and beat up nasty bosses. It sounds like fun, if not much like original Overlord.

Like their counterparts in the original Overlord game, the minions here come in four different flavors: brown, red, green, and blue. These aren't nameless servants carrying out your bidding as part of a sizable horde though; rather, they're an elite "Special Farces" crew named Giblet, Blaze, Stench, and Zap. The minions' abilities are determined by their color, so while Giblet (brown) is great at melee combat, Blaze (red) specializes in ranged attacks and is able to manipulate fire. Blaze can even set alight the toxic farts of Stench who, like other green minions, is an assassin of sorts and immune to poison.

Overlord Minions is viewed from a top-down perspective and can be played exclusively with the stylus. Icons on the right of the touch screen are used to choose which minion or minions you control, and then tapping the screen causes them to follow your stylus. Combat will initiate automatically when it's necessary, but you'll tap the screen to perform special moves, such as Giblet's powerful head-butt